


Dream in Black and White

by velero



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Stiles, Canon Divergence, M/M, POV Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 05:20:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3369296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velero/pseuds/velero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has cobbled together a new life for himself, and he's doing <em>fine</em>, just fine: until a pair of gun-toting assholes rip everything apart again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream in Black and White


      
    
       I like black and white,
       Dream in black and white,
       You like black and white,
       Run runaway.
    
          --Great Big Sea, _Run Runaway_ , 1985

The infuriating part of the whole fiasco was that he was finally feeling more-or-less settled, like he could possibly be, if not exactly happy, at least content here.

When he'd left Beacon Hills, the logical direction to head was east, with 3000 miles of the continent to lose himself in. So, of course, he'd headed east. He'd emptied his own meager savings account, and had withdrawn as much from various AMC machines using Dad's debit cards as he could until they froze him out, which happened when he was about three-quarters of the way across the state. At that point, he'd stocked up on water and snacks, filled his tank, and driven the rest of that day and through the night and the following day, using rest stops to pee and stretch his legs and swallow his Adderall with energy drinks, until he was over the Sierras and out of California.

After conking out overnight in a crappy motel, he followed the highway a few more miles east into Nevada, then turned north as the _least_ likely direction a searcher would think to look for him, figuring he'd thrown a big enough false trail by going east first as anyone who might try to find him would expect.

He sold the Jeep for scrap in the first town he came to where that was an option. He gave the battered fender a pat before turning resolutely away from it for the last time, not looking back as he walked away. Clinging to the past wouldn't get him anywhere good, he knew that too damned well, and he was too tired and wrung out to care about giving up a mere vehicle, anyway.

Rather than looking for a bus after getting rid of the Jeep, he hitchhiked. He figured he'd either be able to handle any trouble that popped up from being a skinny teenager getting into strangers' cars on lonely stretches of highway or he'd get a bullet in the head when he dozed off. Whatever. Right then, he was equally fine with either option.

He checked the maps on the burner phone he'd bought after leaving his own phone behind and made his destinations between rides short, avoiding spending too much time with any of the same people. Not long enough, hopefully, for any of them to have a reason to remember him.

Just an ordinary, unremarkable kid who was hitchhiking home: their good deed for the day. The hitchhiking slowed his pace, but that suited him, too. He had nowhere to go and didn't give a shit how long it took to get to that nowhere destination.

He slowed his progression even more as he adopted a zigzagging route on his way generally north, often opting for side roads and avoiding the highways, wandering through one nondescript town he'd never heard of after another. Just before leaving Nevada, he bought a cheap car that was as much of a piece-of-garbage as the Jeep had been, but less distinctive. An old green Volvo with rust spots, it was such a dull vehicle that it was highly unlikely to attract anybody's attention or be memorable. It had a ton of mileage, but it ran okay. The radio was broken, but the heater worked, so that was all right, too. Most important of all, it was dirt cheap. He bought it from an ad in a free newspaper he picked up at a lunch stop. The private seller just wanted rid of the car and agreed to a bargained down price.

He bought it with new fake ID. He was still using his old driver's license because those were hard to get without an address that wasn't a motel. But he acquired a fake ID card with his picture on it, which he'd found a guy to make a few towns back when he had enough cash to pay for a decent job. He'd found the guy online while staying in a cruddy motel in an off-the-track place called Laytonville. Casting around for a name to call himself, he'd shrugged and thought _Hell, why not?_ and became Jon Layton. He'd opted for the most generic male first name of all, John, but spelled it Jon just to appease his need for something slightly out of the ordinary. Plus, anyone hearing it spoken would think it was "John" and remember it like that, so it was one more obfuscating layer.

Once independently mobile again, he continued heading generally north. Clear of California to his left and a half-day's drive into Oregon, he veered west, hankering for a glimpse of the great Pacific.

Sometimes along the way, he stopped for a couple of weeks or so, occasionally getting a so-called "after-school" job at some burger joint or a 7-Eleven; any casual employment, minimum-wage place needing help that he happened across. He picked up assorted unskilled experience that way, which was all to the good for the growing résumé he was keeping on his phone for Jon Layton.

Meanwhile, he let his hair grow out and picked up a pair of totally hipster, plain glass specs, though his interest in looking hip was nonexistent. Their usefulness was in changing his appearance, in making him look older, especially once his buzz cut grew out. He bought a pair of mirrored flip shades that fit onto the frames and looked rad as well as hiding his eyes. He made sure he never wore the shades except on sunny days, though, both so he didn't look like he was trying to hide something and wouldn't attract attention.

He stopped at thrift stores and exchanged his plaids for solid-colored shirts; his printed T-shirts for plain ones. Anything that wouldn't be memorable, would let him blend into the background.

All told, it was a couple of months at least--once he was safely out of California, he stopped paying attention to what day of the week it was, never mind how many weeks had passed--when he'd rambled through Oregon and into Washington. A few days before reaching the state line, he'd joined Highway 101, the coast road, and was increasingly fascinated by the ever-changing ocean at his left, leaving the highway to follow smaller and smaller roads that kept the glinting water in view through stands of pines and fir trees.

By the time he rolled into a minor bulge on an off-the-beat road well up the Olympic Peninsula called Sawden, he was running low enough on money that he took a job in the first coffee shop and snack bar he saw with a Help Wanted sign in the window. His résumé had genuine experience on it now, with real phone numbers of previous employers who knew him by his new name, rather than his relying on lies, pretend earnestness, and a wing-and-a-prayer.

So he presented his ID and his résumé along with the easy smile he'd learned to fake, and landed the job. He'd hit it lucky again in looking for a place to live when he'd pulled a tab from a hand-written paper on the diner's quaint community bulletin board, called the number that evening from his motel room, and gone to see the place the following day. By that evening, after work, he was walking into his own bedroom with his backpack and looking down from his window onto his Volvo. It was parked on the street, but his roommates assured him it would be safe. Apparently vandalism wasn't much of an issue in Sawden.

The car was a moving piece of junk, but it was his escape in case of emergency, so keeping it safe and in good working order was a priority.

Most of all, he'd lucked out with his roommates, a pair of cousins sharing the three-bedroom upper floor of a co-op housing complex. Jessa and Ben were friendly, generally quiet, and even fun, once they'd relaxed with him. He liked hanging out with them on his time off. While going out to bars and pool halls was tempting--no better escapism than constant, mindless activity--not going out meant he saved money, replenishing his depleted cache, which, who knew what might happen, he might need at any time to make a quick getaway.

As the weeks passed, though, he stopped living on the edge, gingerly settling into the idea of maybe even staying for awhile. He'd been heading nowhere and, by chance, he'd found a nowhere place that felt lost enough in the wilderness to be a refuge.

Staying put in one place seemed like an alien concept by this point, which in itself suggested he might want to embrace the idea, become accustomed to the notion of having a _home_ again, as opposed to just a place to stay a few nights before moving on.

So it was really fucking disappointing that, at the start of his third month at the diner, a couple of assholes decided a Wednesday afternoon would be a great time to rob the place.

He was working his magic on the finicky coffee machine while Treen handled the counter and the trickle of customers during the mid-afternoon doldrums. He heard the bell over the door tinkle followed by footsteps on the linoleum, but they were peripheral noise, so commonplace to him now that they didn't really register. Treen asked what they'd like; he heard the words, too, at a distance, signaling nothing to him but _normal_.

What brought him to full alert instantly was the all too recognizable sound of guns cocking. Jesus _fuck_.

The coffee machine was at the end of the counter area near the door to the kitchen. He was squatting down at its side checking out the plug, which somehow kept working itself loose. His position meant he was out of the line of sight of anybody standing near the cash register at the far end of the counter nearest the door, where he could locate the two guys by their voices. Peeking around the corner, he could see one of the guys had a gun pointing at Treen while his partner, standing back-to-back with him, was covering the customers seated at scattered tables.

Fortunately, there were no kids in the place right now, and everyone was so far calm and not making any sudden or hysterical moves.

He stayed ducked down in his hidden position. Alerting them to his presence now wouldn't be a good move, especially since he could see the shake in the gun held on Treen. These guys were either amateurs or high. He didn't want to take a chance on startling them whichever case it was.

He peered into the kitchen to confirm that Joe, the cook, wasn't back from his break yet. He tried to remember how long Joe had been gone, hoping like hell Joe wouldn't walk into this situation all unknowing, whistling off-tune ZZ Top the way he did, overweight and easy-going and completely incapable of dealing with this kind of shit. Joe would just be another hostage and his sudden appearance would likely rack up the unstable tension these douchecanoes were exuding like a heavy aftershave.

He patted his pockets, just to check, though he was pretty sure he'd left his phone in his jacket pocket. It wasn't like he had anyone around these days who was likely to call him, so he'd lost the habit of keeping it close. He grimaced when he confirmed he didn't have it on him, and his jacket was hanging in the kitchen break area in the back.

Shitty and scary as the situation was, it probably would've worked out okay if Treen had just handed over the money from the till and let them run off. Unfortunately, she fumbled trying to get the till open, at least as rattled as they were, and her agitation inflated theirs until both of the guys were yelling, one of them at his partner and that one at Treen.

Which, seriously, man, was not helpful. Get a grip, for fuck's sake!

He could tell from the ambient sounds that the diners were getting restless, too. The situation was going downhill and promising to escalate quickly.

Then there were quick boot steps on the floor and bellowing about a phone. Stiles closed his eyes. Okay. Hopefully somebody had called 911. The police should be here soon, but perhaps not soon enough given how rattled these guys were getting. And that was if the customer had managed to complete a call before being seen. He heard the sound of breaking plastic and visualized a phone being ground to smithereens under a boot heel.

His backpack was under the counter only a few feet away. He opened his eyes and stared at it. He had two choices: he could slip unseen into the kitchen and out the back door, grabbing his jacket on the way. From the alley, he could call the cops anonymously, then get the hell away; maybe even leave town entirely. Stop at the house and pick up his few other belongings, then scoot.

Or he could get to his pack and make sure no one here got hurt.

He blew out a silent breath, peeked around the corner once more, then scuttled, hunched over, across the narrow open space to huddle in the shade of the counter. He pulled his backpack forward and unzipped it, not bothering to be quiet about it. The two guys were yelling so much now there was no way they'd hear such slight sounds. His shoulders were tense with the expectation of hearing gunshots and screams at any moment.

Dammit, he hadn't missed this churning in his gut and the gooseflesh raising the hairs on his arms and the chills crawling up his spine one _single fucking bit_.

His fingers touched the cold of his batons and he closed his hand around them, pulling them free of the bag and slipping one up each of his sleeves, the handling of them so workaday that he didn't need to look at what he was doing, concentrating instead on regulating his breathing. He was ready in seconds.

When he rose up enough to glance over the counter, he could see one of the guys was now holding Treen by the back of the neck with his gun in his other hand waving around near her head. Fuck! His stomach lurched. What he could see of the guy's face above a bandanna used as a mask was red and blotchy, and he was clearly on the verge of losing control. The guy's partner, meanwhile, was out of view, but his yelling located him as standing to his left, the closer of the two to where he was crouched.

He squared his shoulders and stood up. Body loose and hands hanging at his sides, he stepped around the end of the counter. His movement itself attracted both of the wannabe thieves' attention. The one nearest him jumped, startled, then swung around, bringing his gun up and holding it on him.

With that much jittery tremor in his hand, the guy really should be holding it with two hands. Amateurs, without a doubt. Dammit. The other gunman jerked his head up to look and his body tensed, but he didn't take his gun off Treen, though he did momentarily stop screeching.

He lifted his hands away from his body in a slow move that hopefully would come across as non-threatening.

"Easy, guys, come on. Nobody needs to get hurt, right? This is a small diner. We don't have much cash. And, you know, these days, a helluva lot of people pay by debit card even for just a cheap meal. Why don't you just take what there is in the register and get out while you can?"

Neither of the asshats was thinking straight, though.

Arms now each held at a forty-five degree angle from his body, he was ready. He'd just really rather talk them down and out the door without any physical assault happening on either side.

...possibly right into the arms of the police. He could faintly hear a siren. Assuming they were heading here for the _armed robbery in progress_ , if someone had actually managed to make that call, they weren't far away. If he could just keep these guys talking--

Then the one nearest him commenced shouting at him and waving the goddamned gun around. From the corner of his eye, he could see the customers ducking down each time the barrel pointed in their direction, and he didn't blame them one bit. This guy was unstable. His eyes above the scarf masking the lower part of his face inside the hoodie looked wild, unhinged. Not a hint of rationality in those eyes, in the guy's body language, or what he could see of his face to make getting through to him with logic a possibility. So when the guy reached for him--

He snapped his arms down to his sides, hands hitting his thighs and the batons sliding through his fingers with accustomed silkiness. He closed his fingers around the leather grips the moment they touched his palms and, in a fluid movement, leaped to his left and struck the gunman with his left baton just above the knee, then, with a spin on the ball of his foot, slapped his right baton across the guy's belly. The guy folded like a sack of potatoes; a tap with the left baton across his shoulders quickened his face-plant on the floor. Another slap of the left baton against the guy's forearm as he was falling made his hand spasm open and drop the gun.

He kicked the gun away, hearing in the background the clatter it made as it skidded across the linoleum floor.

Without pause, he twirled and leaped toward the gunman threatening Treen, landing with fluid balance, this time first bringing his right baton down in a hard, cracking shot across the guy's forearm, making him drop his gun, too, then landing a blow in a cross-sweep with his left baton across the guy's lower back as he bent over, grabbing at his injured arm. The second blow sent him crashing to his knees. The idiot actually reached for the gun with his left arm, fingers splayed and grasping.

"Forget it." He heard the deadness in his voice, cold and hard as the gun he kicked away. "Just stay the fuck down."

The guy was glaring up at him, but also clutching his arm, which probably wasn't broken, but was undoubtedly hurting like a bitch, and he didn't look ready to argue. His eyes were wide and dilated; pain or shock, maybe--or possibly drugs. He'd put his money on drugs being the primary cause. The siren was loud now, the police probably not more than a block away. He turned sideways and set his feet apart to keep an eye on both of the assholes.

"Treen, are you okay?" He didn't look directly at her, but he could see her in his peripheral vision clinging to the edge of the counter.

When she didn't answer, he glanced over, only to see her staring at him with huge eyes, like he was an alien. He became acutely aware of the stunned silence in the diner. He averted his eyes, already feeling stripped fucking naked.

One of the customers at the nearest table to the first guy he'd put down half-stood, stooping over and reaching for the gun that had slithered close to his foot.

"Don't touch it with your hands!"

The customer started and jerked back, eyes darting to him.

Stiles drew in a long breath and did his best to modulate his voice. "Actually, don't touch it at all. Just nudge it away and leave it alone, okay? Keep an eye on the guy."

A police car pulled up outside. As two officers ran toward the door, guns in hand, he turned and laid the batons on the counter, then raised his hands to shoulder height, palms facing outward.

He was sweating from the adrenaline still coursing through his blood, his heart pounding, but he kept himself calm and stood quietly as the officers cuffed the perps and secured the guns. One of them took a look at Treen's ashen face and called for a medical unit. Another cruiser pulled up outside and took the gunmen and the guns into custody.

He let an officer turn him to face the counter, putting his hands on its cool top and leaning on them as ordered. He spread his legs and let them frisk him. When they were done, he showed his ID as requested and gave his current address, polite and nonconfrontational. More police arrived, along with a couple of EMTs, one of whom detoured to check on the gunmen outside while the other came inside, got a nod from the cop in charge, and went straight to Treen.

He tuned out the voices of customers giving accounts of what had happened, some unnerved, shocky, others excited, but all focusing on his takedown of the gunmen. Flying fuck, what a goddamned mess.

Then two detectives arrived and he exhaled a centering breath and prepared for his time under the microscope. They listened to the reports, studied him up and down with assessing eyes, then politely asked him to accompany them to the station to make a report. He summoned a smile he hoped looked suitably shaky and innocent, shot Treen a final concerned look as he was escorted outside, then put his entire focus on micro-managing his body language and known tells during the drive to the police station and being escorted inside and into a seat on a hard chair in an interview room.

"How did you learn to fight like that?"

He hid his sweating hands under the table, laying each of them palm down on his thighs and making sure he didn't try to wipe them off because that would be a dead giveaway. At least the detectives couldn't hear the jackknife hammering of his heart. At least, he was relatively certain neither of them had supernatural powers.

The whole thing had been over in seconds, but moving like that again, using his batons for attack, had opened the door he'd worked ruthlessly hard to lock shut on a raft of memories he absolutely did not want cluttering his brain.

His made his voice as mild and earnest as he could. "I was a geeky, skinny kid. I got bullied a lot in middle school, you know? So I started working out, watched videos, practiced. I hung out at a dojo and was allowed to sit in on some basic classes in exchange for sweeping up."

The dojo was pure fabrication, but it was long enough ago that they wouldn't be able to check now. If asked, his story would be that it closed shop back when he was thirteen or so when the owner retired.

The interrogating officer, who'd introduced himself as Detective Adam Faber, placed the batons on the table between them. Their glittering sheen looked otherworldly in the room's harsh lighting.

"These seem remarkably professional, though I can't say I've seen anything exactly like them before. Curious working. Did you make them yourself?"

"Sure did." He worked at keeping his voice smooth and his shoulders relaxed.

Faber peered more closely at the rounded end of one of the batons. "A hard wood?"

He nodded. "Yeah, it's ash, actually. I found some scraps in a carpenter's workshop that he let me have for nothing since he was just going to throw them out."

He bit back the temptation to elaborate on how he'd exchanged cleaning up the man's yard for use of his jigsaw. He'd already used the work-exchange scenario for the dojo. Also: The first rule of being interrogated was to give them what they asked for, but not to volunteer more. The more elaborate the story, the more they had to check up on, plus the more chances you'd forget a detail and accidentally compromise your own story.

Identifying the specific wood, though, was a safe giveaway. Any wood expert would be able to tell what it was, so no point in trying to hide that unimportant point. He could give them an innocuous detail and look like he was being openly helpful.

Anyway, he doubted any members of this backwater town force would have any reason to perk up at learning his batons were made of ash. Just a random hard wood like any other; no particular significance about it to ping a bell. And unless somebody unwrapped the silver, they wouldn't see the symbols carefully etched into the wood beneath.

Faber hefted one of the batons, turning it so the room's fluorescent light looked like it was leaping and dancing along the coiled wire strands. "And covered with metal. Interesting choice."

He just smiled, as though in thanks for the compliment on his ingenuity, and didn't take the bait: No question asked, no answer required. Nervous people gave too much away in their attempts to assert their innocence. He'd grown up absorbing this shit.

He turned mentally, frigidly, away from that chasm, locking his eyes and attention squarely on Faber.

Faber watched him, sitting apparently at ease, but with shrewd eyes. He fingered one of the batons.

"The guys who know about these things say it's silver. Seems an odd choice." Faber paused again, then finally came out with a concrete question: "Why did you choose to cover them in silver? It's a soft metal, not as hard as the wood itself."

"I thought it looked pretty. More importantly, it makes the sticks shine when you move around with them. It helps in tracking them from the corner of your eye without turning your head and losing the balance of your stance."

Faber nodded. "But silver? Why not a base metal? Silver seems a curiously expensive choice for no tangible gain over any other metal. Were you used to working with silver?"

_Fishing trip, baby._

He pitched his voice as low and husky as he could as he nodded. "My mother used to make jewelry. She taught me how to wrap simple objects, and there's nothing much simpler than wrapping soft metal wire around a thin stick. Much easier than the fiddly, intricate work done with necklaces and earrings." He carefully stuck with using "stick" because it sounded more amateurish, casual, than "baton."

"I see." Faber smiled, all bland friendliness except for his sharp eyes. "Did she give you the silver for these...sticks?"

He let his smile become just a little fixed and met Faber's eyes straight on. "In a way. She died when I was a kid and the silver was among her jewelry-making supplies we stored in the attic." He decided to pre-empt the obvious next question and get points for being helpful and open. "The leather around the end-grips was also from her supplies, and, yes, she taught me how to work with leather strips, too. Braided bracelets with beads woven into them and stuff like that, you know? Though when she died, I was still at an age where I was under strict orders to ask her to cut the strips for me. I wasn't allowed to use a knife or scissors sharp enough to cut leather."

Faber's own smile froze, and he broke eye contact, averting his gaze back to the batons while shifting in his chair. Good. Exactly the deflected response he'd been trying to elicit.

A few more questions, each of them becoming vaguer, more general, rather than more pointed, then Faber left the room.

Knowing he'd been under observation throughout the interview via the one-way window, and that he'd be scrutinized while left alone, he let himself slump back in the chair and scrub a hand through his hair, but otherwise stayed loose and relaxed, letting his eyes roam randomly over the room without looking directly at the mirrored glass opposite him or the camera in the upper south-east corner pointed down at him. He did his best to project the image of an average Joe caught in a bad situation who'd reacted in an easily explainable way to a threat and had nothing at all-- _nada_ , zilch--to hide. Nothing whatsoever.

He didn't breathe easily, however, until Faber returned, thanked him and said he was free to go.

"Please don't leave town. We might need to talk to you again." Faber's voice was coolly polite, but firm enough to underscore a warning.

He agreed, collected his batons and the few items, all ordinary crap, they'd taken from his pockets when they'd brought him in, and walked out. They offered him a drive back to the diner, but the town was small and he was restless with unspent energy fizzing along his nerves, so he declined and set out at a brisk walk.

He was glad he'd walked to work that morning, leaving his car at home, so the police had no reason to look at it, or even know he had one. The car had legitimate Nevada license plates, but they and the bill of sale were in his fake name. Jon Layton was originally from Nevada, like his ID said, but while the papers were good enough to get him minimum-wage jobs and a library card, they'd crumble if scrutinized by an expert.

Especially since his driver's license was still in his real name. He'd been planning to get a new one if he decided to stick around Sawden. He had the money saved for a fake one now, and it wouldn't be wasted if he was truly going to settle here for awhile.

Though, honestly, being done with his old name lingering on anything at all, even if he did move on, had an appeal of its own, so he'd been thinking about getting a new one, anyway. Might as well make use of currently having a proper, stable address.

On the whole, though, he figured the interview had gone okay. He was confident enough the police were satisfied that most of what he was feeling now was just tiredness and relief rather than an itching compulsion, a need, to flee town instantly. He hadn't hurt either of the would-be robbers badly; no inappropriate use of force. Hadn't even broken the arm of the asshole who'd been holding the gun on Treen, despite a pounding desire to do just that. He'd pulled the blow enough to cause deep bruising at most.

He'd used just enough force to incapacitate them. They'd be feeling beat up for awhile, but nothing bad enough to keep the police focused on him rather than on the guys with the indisputable weapons and obvious criminal intent.

And no one had seen anything outright damning, just that he'd been fast and efficient, solely because of--as he'd emphasized to Faber--the surprise factor. He'd got the drop on them, that's all. Anybody who'd had a bit of self-defense training could've done the same thing in those circumstances. All that "badass" stuff the customers had been spouting in the diner was nonsense. He'd underscored his insistence with a rueful shrug.

He had a lot of experience in lying convincingly. Though even if Faber didn't believe him entirely about being a mere amateur with the batons, nothing he'd done warranted a closer look.

He detoured past the diner in case Treen was there, to reassure her, but she wasn't. The place was shut up and dark, a band of lurid yellow police tape crossing the door. Treen had been so upset, he doubted she was aware of much of anything that had happened. They'd probably taken her to the hospital, maybe given her a mild sedative before releasing her. He knew she was close to her family, so hopefully she'd be able to go home to their comfort.

He shut the door in his mind on a fleeting longing.

At home, he checked the Volvo, which didn't seem to have been meddled with, and went up the stairs two at a time. The place was empty when he unlocked the door and went inside, Jessa and Ben both still at work. Glad he wouldn't have to rehash the day yet, he took a shower, made a sandwich from leftovers in the fridge, and closed himself in his room. Exhaustion in the aftermath of the adrenaline rush was flooding over him like a wave, but he fought it off long enough to grab his emergency bag from the closet. He put it on the end of his bed and stared at it.

He ate sitting on his bed, the bag between his spread feet. Go or stay? He'd be a fugitive if he left and the police wanted to check in with him again. But would they?

Hell, possibly they would, who the fuck knew, but he was fairly certain he was in the clear. Enough witnesses had seen him to verify he'd acted in self-defense. Or in defense of Treen and the customers, at least. The guys had been armed with guns; he'd simply disarmed them. The fact he'd done it in a showy, not-quite-average-ability way wasn't a fucking crime. He hadn't used excessive force. He hadn't produced a hidden gun of his own or a switchblade or any other prohibited weapon. He figured that even if Faber suspected he'd pulled his punches, so to speak, it wasn't a crime to be adept at a martial art, since he'd used it only defensively.

His batons weren't illegal weapons to carry, either. They had no edge, weren't sharp or pointed like a knife. They were just two pieces of wood smoothed into rounded batons with blunt ends, and covered flashily in silver, with leather-wrapped grips. They looked more like silly decorated props for some amateur theatrical production than actual weapons.

And they weren't any more lethal in themselves than a cane or a riding crop. He'd noticed a middle-aged woman who carried a riding crop on her afternoon walks along the beach. Stopping to talk to her once, admiring the sheen on the oiled wood, she'd confided the crop had been her father's and she just enjoyed carrying it with her, the feel of it in her hand, swinging it at her side as she walked, for the memories it evoked.

He understood that feeling all right. Like wearing his parents' wedding rings on a long chain around his neck, hidden most of the time inside his shirt, but a constant reminder sliding against his skin.

In the right hands, a walking stick or a riding crop could be as lethal as his batons, but none of them were illegal items.

He'd explained away carrying them in his backpack even to work via a story of liking to practice outside on fine days, on the cliffs over the beach or in a quiet section of the park. That part wasn't even untrue.

He sighed as he set his plate on the bedside table and nudged the bag to the edge of the bed. He was in the clear, he was pretty damned sure. He might eventually be wanted to testify in court if there was a trial, but that wouldn't be an issue for a good long while.

He heaved himself up to get ready for bed, trying to drown the lingering uneasiness in routine.

\-----

He jerked awake, sweating, chest heaving, from a dream that was already fading from his memory, leaving behind the sick taste of fear and failure that was all too fucking familiar. He sat up and scrubbed at his eyes as he steadied his breathing, sitting still and as loose as he could relax his muscles as his heart calmed from its harsh pounding. 

His room was flooded with light; he'd forgotten to close the blinds last night. It felt like his usual waking time, and checking his phone confirmed it. He didn't need to be at work for an hour, so he dressed in a leisurely fashion and ambled out to the kitchen.

\--Into chaos. Of a sort. The kind of disruption heralded by Ben turning to stare at him with wide eyes and Jessa...squeaking? It sounded like a squeak when she turned and saw him, and her eyes grew even bigger and rounder than Ben's.

"Hey, guys." He hid his disquiet under a smile. "Something up?"

"Dude." Ben drew out the syllable and turned his laptop around on the table to face him. "A secret ninja? Seriously? How did you not share this awesome skill with us?"

"What." Cold washed over him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

In answer, Ben just pointed at the video he'd brought up on the screen.

He looked at it and dropped into a chair, his legs like strands of spaghetti. Someone in the diner had filmed the robbery and uploaded it to freaking youtube, then posted it to Facebook. The clip was short, but damning. Oh, fuck, so damning.

"It's speeded up." He laced his voice with acid scoffing. "It's obvious, man, come on. The guy speeded up the file."

"I don't know." Jessa leaned down to point over his shoulder. "You can see the other guy with the gun moving in the background and his movements look normal."

"Yeah." Ben was nodding, eyes glued to the screen. "Don't even try to deny it, man: That's all you!"

He jumped as Ben clapped a hand on his shoulder.

On the other hand, he realized, studying the grainy vid, the speed that marked him as singular was also his best friend. His swirling movements were so fast that his face was indistinguishable, and the whole take-down of both the assholes over so quickly there was no way to identify him. He was just pixels of moves quick enough to blur, mostly with his back to the camera since whichever customer shot it must've been sitting against the wall behind him, given the angle.

...well, indistinguishable except for the shiny, unmistakable batons he was wielding. Those were distinctive and at rest at his sides long enough to be identifiable.

Fucking hell.

He paced around the apartment after Jessa and Ben left for their respective jobs. He packed his clothes in his backpack and stuffed the extra things he'd accumulated into his emergency escape bag. Then he sat on the bed next to the bags, unsure for the first time in months just what to do.

Detective Faber had told him outright to stay put. He wasn't, however, going to let that warning stop him if he decided he really needed to leave. The main thing, though, was that he didn't particularly _want_ to pull up stakes yet. It might not be reasonable, but he liked living in this remote and innocuous little place. He enjoyed walking on the beach, his bare toes digging into the damp, gray sand. Walking against the grain, as it were, and scuffing across the fine pattern of rippled lines the water etched into the sand. He liked the smell of salt in the air all through the town and the almost constant wind off the ocean against his face. The cries of seagulls and the mournfulness of the foghorn on misty mornings as he lay in bed waking up had come to feel almost homely.

He hadn't thought he'd ever be happy again, and, hell, he wouldn't really call it happiness. Certainly didn't feel anything remotely related to "happy" if he let himself remember what that used to mean. As long as he stayed rooted firmly in the present, though, he'd found a modicum of peace here.

Still, he could hit the road again if he had to, leave all this behind him in the dust. He wasn't wedded to the town or the people he'd met. He could get lost somewhere else, start again. Take a deep breath and resolutely turn his back, just like last time. Wouldn't be nearly as hard as last time's desperate, furious flight.

He could up stakes if it was necessary, but he just wasn't sure yet that it was necessary. The incident would more than likely all blow over in no time. Did it really matter if a brief video about some nobody called Jon Layton up in a nowhere town in Washington went viral? It was too minor a deal to last long. Something else more spectacular would come along soon; if not today, then tomorrow at the latest. Internet fame flared up quickly, but it died down just as fast.

He'd left Beacon Hills months ago. On a blank day, somewhere during his meandering journey through Oregon, and he honestly didn't know where exactly, he'd had his birthday. He'd deliberately wiped acknowledgement of the day and what it represented--with its taste like ashes on his tongue and a stench of tar--out of his mind, out of existence. Refused to think about that day as anything out of the ordinary. Just one more day on the road. He'd been tempted to hole up in a motel room and get drunk, but it was better to keep on the move, keep going, putting miles behind him and focusing his mind on the need to watch for other cars, watch the needle on the gas tank. Watch the horizon.

The salient point, the only part that mattered, was that he was eighteen now. He could legally make his own decisions about where to go and what to do.

Finally, decisively, he got up, stowed the bags in the trunk of the Volvo just in case, and drove to the diner. He wanted at least to check on how Treen was doing, if he could; if she even felt well enough to come into work today.

And, truthfully, if at all possible, he'd prefer not to leave town before the police cleared him entirely--lost all interest in him and his whereabouts. He'd successfully erased himself from the system once and he could do it again, but, with a little patience, he might not need to go to all the trouble and expense of acquiring another new identity and car and the works, and finding a new place to settle and lose himself in.

Or even if he did choose to move on, at least be able to keep this identity. Jon and Jonathan Laytons abounded in the country, with even more John Laytons. That was the whole point of having chosen a common name, for just such a situation as this one.

He wasn't ready to return to Beacon Hills yet, and nobody could force him to now he was eighteen. But he'd rather avoid any confrontations, the anger still bubbling too close to the surface and ready to erupt.

He slowed to a cruise as he reached the diner. Lights on, the Open sign hanging crooked in the glass door. Nothing looking out of the ordinary. The big windows mirroring the sun made it impossible to see how busy the place was or if Treen was there. Oh, hell, he shouldn't fuck with his usual routine, anyway, just do what he'd normally do today in case the police wanted to check in with him. Or check up on him, if they had suspicions he hadn't detected in Faber.

He sighed, then drove round the back and parked in the alley beside Joe's pick-up. Treen took the bus to work, so no clue there, but he noticed Andy's bike chained to the stand next to the parking slots as he went inside.

Joe looked up and waved his spatula. "Okay, kid? Heard something about you becoming a media sensation."

"Nah, just an internet flash-in-the-pan." He grinned, then sobered. "Heard from Treen?"

"Sure, she's fine. Just taking a few days to go stay with her mom and sister. Says she'll be back on Monday."

"Cool." The tightness in his gut eased as he hung up his jacket.

Joe looked at him speculatively, but didn't say anything else as he turned back to the grill. Joe was cool, too.

Andy was on counter duty when he went out front. Andy gave him a big-eyed look, but turned quickly back to the waiting customer. Andy was okay; quiet and serious, most of the time. Okay, Andy was mostly a bore, but he did his share of the work and wasn't a jerk, so he was all right to work with. Even restful, he eventually realized after a couple of hours of working beside Andy, who might keep shooting him long looks, but didn't try to get him to talk, and even diverted a handful of customers who refused to let it go about the "ninja" thing whenever they caught sight of him.

He got home at his usual time and divided the burgers, chicken, and fries he'd brought home from the diner onto three plates, putting Jessa's and Ben's into the fridge. He ate his with the TV on and went to bed early, lying restlessly watching the full moon, ghostly gray and pockmarked, in its inexorable sail across the window until the last sliver disappeared from his view.

Friday in the diner was annoying since even more people came by to gape and point and whisper, or outright try to get him to talk like the rude assholes they were who couldn't/wouldn't take a fucking hint. Some girls he'd never seen before came in just to flirt. He gritted his teeth and ignored everything except people's orders, focusing on the food, the drinks, the service. Andy stepped up in his unobtrusive way and took over when customers refused to be diverted, so he could escape into the back for a few minutes to get his temper under control, or serve the folks in the diner who weren't there to ogle him or with a tablet in hand and a journalist's questions.

He decided he'd severely underestimated just how awesome quiet Andy was.

But the day passed without his bloodying any noses and he went home and he and Jessa and Ben and Ben's girlfriend drove down the road to the closest bigger town to hit their favorite club, which was dark and loud and crowded with strangers and anonymity and exactly what he needed to unwind from all the day's, the week's, tensions. They got home late, but not too late. He slept like the proverbial log, and went out for a run when he woke up on an overcast Saturday morning, not thinking about anything except the feel of the hard earth of the cliff path under his feet, the cries of the seagulls overhead, and the salt-laced air in his nostrils, each breath bringing him closer to being centered and relaxed.

By the time he'd showered and changed and went to the kitchen for breakfast, all he was thinking about was food, glorious food. Jessa came in while he was shoveling the best omelet west of the Mississippi into his mouth.

"Oh, hey, there you are!" She grinned as he just waved his fork at her, mouth full and chewing energetically. "A guy dropped by earlier looking for you."

His stomach clenched and he swallowed and carefully laid his fork down. "Yeah? Who?"

She shook her head as she poured herself a glass of orange juice. "He didn't give his name. Just said he was a friend of yours."

"A friend."

Yeah, sure, one of the hordes of friends he had around here who were always popping over to visit. He narrowed his eyes.

"Did he say what he wanted?"

"Nope, sorry." She shrugged. "I don't know, Jon. He seemed nice, but who knows? Maybe he was a reporter or one of your weirdo lookie-loo fans."

He couldn't help cracking a grin and she smiled back. " _People are strange_ ," he sing-songed.

She laughed as she sat down opposite him with a bowl of Captain Crunch. " _You're_ strange, bud."

He dug back into his omelet, grin melting away into the fizz of anxiety again. "So, what'd this guy look like?"

"Oh, dark hair. Tallish. Built, like, seriously." She paused, then added with a faint smile, eyes staring into nothing like she was visualizing him again--and without a hint of the caution a possible freaking stalker rated, jesus fuck!--in a velvety voice, " _Gorgeous_ smile."

He froze with his fork halfway to his mouth. No. No _fucking_ way!

"Black stubble, or maybe a short beard? Pronounced, expressive eyebrows? Kind of what you might in general term devastatingly hot?"

She started back from fantasyland and focused on him with a blink of her eyes. "Uh, yeah, sure, that works as a capsule description. So you do know him?"

"Oh, my god." He dropped his fork onto the plate and stood up.

He stared blankly around the kitchen, which suddenly seemed like someplace he'd never seen before, while trying to keep his breathing under control.

"Crap. _Crap._ " He ran a hand over his head. "I've gotta go."

Jessa stood up. "What's the matter? Is this the guy you've been running from?"

He turned on his heel in the doorway and stared at her. "What?"

She grimaced at him and spread her hands pacifically. "We're not stupid, Jon. It was obvious from the start you were running away from something. Or somebody."

He struggled through a miasma of tangled urges shooting around his brain like a hail of tiny arrows. "Right. I know you're not stupid, Jessa. I'm sorry I was never straight with you guys."

"It's okay. We figured you might want to talk about it one day. Or maybe not. It didn't matter."

He choked on a laugh at the goddamned irony of how all along he'd thought he was being subtle as hell.

"You guys are the greatest. Seriously." He lifted his shaking right hand in an abortive gesture. "But I have to leave. Right now."

She nodded. "Okay. Do what you need to do."

He jogged into his bedroom, shoved his feet into his Vans, pulled on his jacket, and grabbed his backpack and the small bag, pausing only to stuff in his bathroom things before zipping it shut. He paused for a quick but strong hug with Jessa and pushed the month's rent money into her hand.

"Tell Ben I'm sorry for just taking off like this, and tell him I said 'bye?"

She looked worried, frowning, but managed a smile. "Sure. Call us when you can, okay?"

He nodded and headed for the door. As he was flipping the lock, Jessa spoke hesitantly behind him.

"Jon, this guy who's after you. He's not dangerous, is he?"

He swiveled around to face her. "No. No! Absolutely not. Not remotely dangerous to you or Ben, I swear. And he's--" He licked his lips. "He's not dangerous to me, either. It's, it's nothing at all like that. I'll try to explain one day, I promise. I just really need to go now."

He made himself stay still, all his muscles tensed, waiting the few moments until her eyes cleared and she nodded, then he took a breath and left with a last quick smile. He quick-footed it to the street, had unlocked his car and was throwing his pack and the bag into the back seat when the hairs on the nape of his neck raised at the sound of measured footsteps behind him.

"Stiles."

He didn't turn around. "Get away from me. I don't want to see you. I thought these last few months would've made that clear."

"Stiles, wait--"

"Just fuck off and leave me alone." 

He slammed the door and rounded the car to the driver's side, keeping his eyes on the keys in his shaking hand. He was quick, had the door open and was about to slide in, his escape that close at hand: but, as always, he couldn't compete with a werewolf's speed. Or strength, as he tried to yank the door free of a hand like a vise.

"He's alive. Stiles, he's _alive_."

He gasped like he'd been punched in the gut. "No, no, fuck, what are you doing? What the hell are you doing!"

All he could see was a blur of cascading colors with dark pulsing at the edges.

The car door was suddenly fully open and he was sitting on the seat, facing outwards, his legs shaking like jelly. He flung out a hand and latched blindly onto Derek's hip, a rock-solid anchor in a heaving world.

Derek's voice was urgent, but steady, firm; close enough he could feel Derek's breath on his temple. "He's okay. He's out of the hospital, back at home, and he's going to be _fine_."

Derek thrust a phone under his nose and he could...

He could hear a tinny voice saying his name over and over.

He grabbed the phone. "Dad? _Dad?_ "

"Stiles! Oh, thank god, Stiles, are you all right, son?"

"I'm fine." His voice sounded like a faint croak. He pressed his free hand over his watering eyes and heaved in a choked breath. "I'm okay, Dad. I'm great. I am so super great now, you have no idea!"

"I do. I do know. Me, too. Okay? Please come home, kiddo. _Please_ , son."

"Yes! Yeah, I'm coming. I'm coming home right now. I'll be there--" he dropped his hand from his eyes and lifted his head, blinking his vision clear as it hit him in the gut just how freaking far he had to go, how far he'd run "--as soon as I can. I'm on my way right now. It'll take me awhile, I don't know--"

"Where are you, son?"

He sniffed and leaned forward to press his forehead against the solid, unmoving wall of Derek's abdomen. Derek's hand settled against the back of his neck, a warm, anchoring weight on the cold prickling of his bare skin. He drew an easier breath, feeling less like he was about to fly apart in pieces.

"A teensy place a few miles from Seattle."

Dad's laugh in his ear, even in the phone's lousy speakers, was a blade of sunshine, though shaky as Stiles' hands. He thought Dad might be crying a little, too. "Trust you to head in the least predictable direction."

"I learned all sorts of useful lessons about fugitives, being the Sheriff's kid and all."

Dad's voice went serious and heartfelt again. "I'm so sorry about what you went through, kid. If I'd had any idea that would've happened-- I should've thought harder about the possibility--"

"No, it's okay, Dad. Everything's okay now. I just need to get home somehow, as quick as I can."

Derek's voice was low and steady above him, still that rock holding him fast. "We'll fly from Seattle. I've already got the tickets."

Stiles laughed, feeling giddy. Maybe on the verge of hysteria, but who the hell cared. He was going home and Dad was okay. Dad was _okay_. He was going home and Dad would be there and every fucking thing in the entire world was goddamned A-okay!

He blinked around the street in a daze. Everything around him looked sharp and clear, as bright as though a kaleidoscope had exploded and drenched the world in brilliant colors.

"So, Derek's taken care of it and we're--"

Derek had a grip on his arm and had pulled him to his feet and was propelling him around the car to the passenger side.

"--um, we're on our way. Right this moment, actually. Apparently. Being on our way to the airport is a thing we're doing this very minute." He wiped a stray tear off his cheek and sniffed as he settled in the seat and Derek closed the door, then laughed in sheer glee. "I'm on my way home, Dad!"

Dad laughed, too. "I can't wait to see you."

"Our flight should get into San Francisco around three."

He glanced at Derek, who was already strapped in and starting the car, then relayed the info to Dad.

He didn't want to let go of Dad's voice in his ear, but he could hear the shakiness in it and wanted him to rest.

"I love you," Dad said.

He took a deep, cleansing breath and let it go. "I love you, too. See you soon."

He dropped his hand holding the phone into his lap and his head back against the headrest, closing his eyes. Derek was driving with controlled speed. Which--hah! Derek was driving Stiles' car. He laughed silently, still in that vortex of almost-hysteria but his heart slowly calming, his nerves steadying.

Big bad werewolf Derek Hale was driving a _Volvo_. Derek with his black leather and fierce eyebrows and intimidating muscles was behind the wheel of Stiles' clunker of a Volvo. He wished he had the energy to take a pic with Derek's phone, still in his fingers' loose grasp. It was even more priceless than Derek driving the Jeep would've been.

Without opening his eyes, he said, "It was that youtube vid, wasn't it? Who saw it?"

"Kids were talking about it at your school and Kira overheard a conversation in a class or the cafeteria or somewhere. Ninja moves and silver sticks were a red flag. After hearing about it, they tracked it down and watched it. That was yesterday."

"And you came straight here to get me." He swallowed at a lump in his throat.

Derek didn't answer, but Stiles could hear the silent _of course_ hanging in the air between them. He turned his head on the headrest and opened his eyes.

"Is he really okay? I mean, like, _really_?"

Derek glanced at him, then turned his concentration back to the road. "Yeah, he is. He's been out of the hospital for three weeks. Still in therapy--"

"Therapy?" Stiles sat up straight.

"Physical therapy. That long in a coma leads to muscle problems, and there's some nerve damage they're working on. He's using a cane right now, but he's walking better all the time and he really is recovering."

Stiles rubbed his forehead, feeling as wrung out as though he hadn't slept in a week. Much like he'd felt at the end, when nobody would listen to him at the hospital where Dad showed no sign of coming out of the coma after having been shot.

He was a minor, they'd said. He had no legal say in the discussion about removing Dad from life support. He'd kept doggedly insisting he was Dad's next of kin, his only family, and they'd just kept repeating, like a fucking stuck record, that he was too young to have a say.

"Honey, I hate this as much as you do," Melissa had said, "but he has a living will. He expressly didn't want to live in a vegetative state."

"He's not vegetative! He could wake up any time! He still has some brain activity. It's too soon--"

She'd tried to hug him, but he'd shied away, holding his arms around himself to keep from flying apart. He had to remain calm, cool. Rational. Adult.

"You can't just kill him. He deserves more of a chance to heal."

But the doctors brushed aside his arguments, his pleas, his demands: everything he tried. He didn't get a say, next of kin or not. He was too fucking _young_.

"I'll be eighteen in a few weeks. Just a few more weeks."

Melissa's eyes were heavy with unshed tears. "He has a living will, Stiles. And you don't have his power of attorney. I'm so sorry, sweetheart, but there's nothing we can do."

"Because I wasn't old enough for him to name me! But my birthday's soon. It's _soon_! It's so damned close!"

She shook her head, looking exhausted and hurt and helpless. "That won't retroactively change the living will and power of attorney as he left them."

He'd argued with every ounce of passion and fury and determination, but the doctors had ignored his begging, his cajoling, his pleas and anger and tears. They'd brushed him aside with pity, maybe even gentleness if he hadn't been too blinded by terror and rage to notice or give a damn.

The only thing that mattered was that they'd made their decision based on their own criteria, their outsiders' view of what mattered.

He'd left the morning they'd scheduled to turn off the life support, the day they were going to willfully let his father die. Said his goodbye the night before, kissed Dad's forehead a last time. He couldn't bear to watch them do it, watch Dad die in front of his eyes because the world was full of assholes, from the criminals with their guns and the doctors with their machines and the lawyers with their papers to every person who refused to listen to him.

He'd sat in that same hospital alone with his mom as she'd died. The visceral memory of all those long, harrowing hours he'd never forget surging back to the surface of his mind had added to the agony of the stream of harrowing hours he'd sat with Dad.

He couldn't do it again. Not just sit there, helpless and terrified and watch him die. He wouldn't. Not go to another funeral, either, this time utterly alone. Or bear being around people who claimed to love him, but who'd been as useless as he was when it came to the one thing that mattered the most.

He turned his head and studied Derek's profile, the clean, familiar lines of his forehead and nose and jaw.

"I thought he was dead. All this time, I thought--" His breath hitched.

Derek nodded. "I know. They all seemed certain he'd die without the life support, from what I could gather. Otherwise, I don't really think they'd have done it, even with the living will, not if they'd thought he had a chance of living and making a good recovery."

"So how--?" He stuttered to a stop and swallowed hard. "What happened?"

Derek flashed him a brief but bright smile. "I guess it's just that Stilinski stubbornness showing itself again. Instead of dying when they took him off the life support, he started breathing on his own."

Stiles rested his head back on the seat and watched as Derek wove the car skillfully through the thickening traffic as they reached the outskirts of Seattle.

"The Stubborn Stilinskis. I like it." His voice dropped to the harshness of overwhelming emotion. "God, how I fucking love it."

He blinked his eyes rapidly until the car lights surrounding them on the busy road came back into focus, and sniffed noisily. Derek threw a for-real cloth handkerchief at him, because Derek was a bizarre throwback to the nineteenth century who carried bona-fide cotton hankies in his badass leather jacket pocket. Still, his handkerchiefs were big and soft and this one handily absorbed all the tears and snot with a dry quarter to spare.

They left the Volvo in the Sea-Tac parking garage with a one-hour ticket on the dash. It'd be towed and he didn't care what they did with it. He followed Derek's long, sure strides through the airport, which he seemed to know surprisingly well.

"I flew in last night." Derek was scanning the boards with his werewolf-perfect vision, then leading them toward their gate.

Stiles felt the comfort in letting Derek take care of everything. He'd been taking care of himself for all these months, and doing fine, but it was strangely freeing to lean on somebody else again. Someone he trusted implicitly.

Despite a substantial line, they got through security with time to spare and were settled in the waiting area with a three-quarter hour margin. He borrowed Derek's phone, which he discovered he'd slipped into his own pocket sometime in the car without thinking about it, and called Jessa to let her know he was okay, he was going home, and he'd call them again in a few days with the full story.

"Crap," he said as he ended the call and handed the phone to Derek. "I wasn't supposed to leave town. I'll have to call Detective Faber tomorrow."

Oh, what fun explaining the whole fake ID and name thing to the police was going to be! But right now, he didn't give a damn.

Everything but seeing Dad, smelling him, hearing his voice, _hugging_ him, could wait.

Except: He slid his hand tentatively over Derek's as they sat in the waiting area. Derek didn't pull away, as Stiles had half-feared he would, so he laced their fingers together. Derek turned to look at him and tightened his own grip on Stiles' hand.

Stiles met his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry I left you, too, without even saying goodbye. I just.... I couldn't stay. You know? I was so angry, I wanted to wipe it all out. Just obliterate everything, and I threw away the good with the lousy."

Derek squeezed his fingers. Derek's eyes, so often hard and shuttered in public places, were open and attentive as he nodded.

They hadn't ever really talked--yet--about the fire that had torn apart Derek's life, but he was well aware Derek knew more about loss and grief and rage than anyone else he'd ever known.

Derek's voice was quiet and Stiles leaned closer to hear him: "Laura and I ran all the way to New York, and we only stopped then because we'd hit the ocean. We left everything behind, including Uncle Peter in the hospital, horribly burned."

"No one would listen to me." His voice sounded broken in his own ears.

Derek's strong arms were wrapping around him and he clutched at Derek's wide shoulders and rammed his face into Derek's neck.

"And I was right." He wasn't sobbing, but his breath was hitching and he was shaking, on the edge of losing it as the terror and the fury rushed back over him in an icy bath. "They wouldn't listen, but I was right. Dad wasn't a vegetable, he was alive and healing. And they wouldn't listen and were going to fucking _kill_ him."

Derek's voice was low with a shaky edge, too, but soothing and safe as a blanket fort shielding him from the world. "I know. Just keep breathing evenly, okay? We'll be home soon. Then you can fix things."

"Damn straight." He managed a wheezy laugh. "Dad and I are going to have a serious, sit-down talk about this living will and power of attorney now I'm eighteen." He sniffed and fished Derek's handkerchief out of his pocket, folded ready with the clean section on top, which he swiped across his eyes, then his nose.

He looked consideringly at Derek when he'd cleaned himself up. Derek looked tired.

"Thanks to you, I'm going home. You must've left, what, right away after seeing the video?"

Derek nodded, then shrugged. "Scott and the others were making plans to come get you. I didn't see any point in talking about it, so I just left."

"Of course you did, and I bet you didn't tell anybody before going, either." He grinned, a bit watery, maybe, but with his spirits rising and the sense that maybe, just maybe, he was going to be able to salvage everything important to him after all. "Just like me."

Derek side-eyed him and Stiles could see the knowledge of where Stiles was headed dancing in Derek's eyes. Derek spoke in a dampening voice. "In a minute way, maybe."

He lightly punched Derek's bicep. "Come on, dude, admit the undeniable truth at last: We're way more alike than anybody who looks at us thinks."

Derek let his smile grow a tiny bit more. "Maybe."

As they waited for the call to board, Derek kept stealing glances at him, persistently enough to penetrate the sunburst of exhilaration and relief and joy Stiles was sailing high on.

He glanced down at himself--nothing weirdly askew hit his eyes--and said, "What?"

Derek's eyes cut down to the floor, but he was still smiling. He shrugged, affecting a casual air Stiles wasn't buying for an instant.

"Oh, my god, spit it out! What's with the staring? Do I look so different? I wasn't gone _that_ long."

"You look good. Older." Derek met his eyes, bright with the off-the-wall sweetness he rarely showed anyone else. His smile widened into a full-blown grin. "Good."

His own smile grew as he let himself bask in the feeling of the last fragment of his shattered life moving back into place. "You like my new look, huh? You, on the other hand, look exactly the same." He tilted his head and focused all the heat of pleasure lighting him up inside on Derek. He dropped his voice to the almost growl that always made Derek shiver. "Which is a very, very good thing. Just like me being eighteen and legal at last is a very, very good thing."

He raised his hand to cup Derek's cheek, his palm resting against the softness of Derek's short beard as he stroked his thumb against the smooth skin above. He held Derek's eyes for a moment, then leaned forward before stopping. Holding his breath, hoping for forgiveness, acceptance, a chance to fix this, too, this crucial thing he'd smashed--

\--until Derek leaned forward, parting his lips, and Stiles closed the gap between them. They kissed in a fiery oasis of calm in the middle of Sea-Tac Airport while planes roared overhead and people dragged suitcases around them and Stiles felt halfway home all these miles away.

Then it was the plane, and a snack he couldn't eat, his stomach too knotted, and Derek's hand holding his the whole way, every minute, even when Stiles' hand got sweaty and kind of gross. Derek's Camaro waiting for them in the airport parking garage in San Francisco. Weaving out of the city, Derek focused on getting the best speed through the heavy traffic, then pushing it to the limit on the highway. His hand on Derek's knee, gripping maybe too hard the closer they got to Beacon Hills, but Derek never saying a word of protest. The familiar welcome sign, familiar streets, and his house and the door opening--

Then Dad was clutching him, a cane falling to the driveway with a clatter beside them, and he was holding Dad so close he could feel Dad's heart beating against his chest through their shirts. Dad was warm and vital and smelled like the soap they'd used ever since he could remember, the goat's milk one Mom had liked best, and Derek was a wall of solid strength behind him resting a hand like a laser point of heat between his shoulder blades.

And he was home.


End file.
